Two Are Better Than One
by Dawnieorion
Summary: Twenty-three year old Caroline Forbes Lockwood is a divorced, single mother of a two year old girl. Since leaving her husband two years ago, she hasn't had much luck dating. So when two men ask her out she agrees to both. Months later, she has fallen for both. Unsure of what to do, they make the decision for her and it's nothing that she would have ever considered herself doing. AH


This is an idea that has been rattling around in my head for a little while. For the record I have nothing against Tyler, but for the purpose of this story, I needed someone who was capable of being a downright jerk.

Please give it a chance and let me know what you think.

Third Person POV

Caroline smiled as she walked into the pawn shop; in fact, she couldn't stop smiling. After two years of mediation and forced marriage counseling, she was finally divorced and free of Tyler Lockwood. She walked up to the counter where a middle aged, heavyset man sat.

"What can I do for you?" He asked as he set his magazine down on the counter.

Caroline dropped two sets of wedding rings down on the counter. "How much can you give me for these?"

"Give me just a second." He picked up the rings and walked away for a moment. I turned around looking at the shop. A blonde-haired blue eyed man approached the counter where I was standing as the pawnbroker walked back up to me. "All right miss, I can give you seventeen-fifty for the two sets."

"Wow. May I just say you don't look old enough to have been married twice?" The blonde beauty laughed.

"I haven't been. Both were from the same husband. My divorce was finally finalized this morning after two years of agonizing separation and jumping through hoops. But, now, I am free of my jackass husband. Today is the first day of the rest of my life." Caroline turned back to the waiting pawnbroker. "I'll take it. Thank you." He turned around and walked back into his office.

"Well, congratulations."

Caroline smiled at the man. "Thank you."

"This might not be the best time, but would you like to grab a bite to eat sometime. I'm Matt by the way."

"You seem really nice, but you should be warned, I have a two year old daughter. I very rarely have a baby sitter." Caroline told him truthfully. She had dated occasionally throughout the past two years and knew as soon they found out that she had a daughter, they usually ran.

"I love kids."

Caroline kept eye contact with him for a moment trying to decide if he was serious or not. Finally she decided to take the chance. "Okay, what if we meet you in the park on Saturday? I have the day off."

"Sounds great." Matt laughed.

"I'm Caroline, by the way." Matt and Caroline exchanged phone numbers and chatted for a few more minutes while she waited for the pawnbroker to bring back the money for her. She had been waiting for the divorce to finalize so that she could sell the rings. She was hurting for money. If she hadn't been living with her mother, she would probably be homeless. This was going to help though. She waitressed at the Mystic Grill while either her mother or friends babysat for her, but it wasn't going to make her rich.

_The Next Day_

Caroline was patiently waiting for her latte at the local Starbucks. She heard her name called from one of the baristas and headed up to the counter. She had no sooner taken her cup and turned around when she ran into a man who was rushing by her on a cell phone.

"You have got to be kidding me." Caroline grumbled.

The other guy was on his cell phone still. "Listen mate, I'm going to have to call you back." He hung up his cell phone and slid in his suit pocket. "I am so sorry. Please let me get you another one." He grabbed a couple napkins off the counter and handed them to her.

"Thank you, but I don't actually have time to wait, especially now that I have to run home and grab a new shirt for work." She took the napkins from him and patted herself down. She cleaned up what little spilt on the floor and threw the cup and napkins in the trash. Caroline glanced up at the wall clock. "Crap. I'm so late now." She scurried out of the coffee shop and headed back home to change.

Caroline walked out the back room where the time clock was housed where the new hostess, Vicki Donovan, informed her that she had a customer in her section. She grabbed her order pad and a pen and headed over to her section. She arrived at the table and looked up to see a single man sitting in the booth. He was pretty good looking, short, curly, dirty blonde hair and blue-green eyes and a smile occupying his face that she would never forget. It was a smile that almost made her smile.

"Hi, my name's Caroline. Can I get you something to drink?"

"Actually, I brought a drink with me." His thick English accent spilt out as he lifted up a Starbuck Coffee cup. Caroline quickly realized that this was the same man she ran into at Starbucks. "I hope you don't mind. I saw where you worked on your shirt and felt bad about spilling your last latte." He handed the cup to her.

"How did you know what I ordered?" She glared at him skeptically as she took the cup and took a small taste.

"I asked the barista what the beautiful, blonde girl had ordered. Fortunately for me, you caught his eye as well."

"Well, thank you, you really didn't have to do that. I really appreciate it." She took another drink of the latte when she caught her manager leering at her from across the floor and quickly quit drinking the latte. "Were you wanting to order something?"

"I wish I could, if only to bask in your presence a little longer; but alas, I am obligated to go sit in a boardroom with my sisters and brothers for the remainder of the afternoon." Caroline couldn't help but blush at his comments. "I would love to talk to you again. Any chance I could get your number? Maybe we could continue this another time." He trailed off.

"I have a two year old daughter." She blurted out, reminiscent of the day before.

"Do you need to ask for her permission?"

Caroline smirked, "no, I just don't want to waste your time."

"Don't count on it." He stood up and looked down at her. Caroline wrote down her name and number on her order pad and handed the top sheet to him. "Caroline, I can not wait to continue this with you later, but for now I will let you get to work."

He turned to walk away when Caroline called out to him. "Wait! I didn't catch your name."

"Niklaus Mikaelson." He turned and walked away while the smile didn't leave Caroline's face for the rest of her shift.

One month later, she was still seeing each of them pretty regularly. They each knew that she was seeing someone else and were both fine with it considering neither were overly serious. She was taking it slow with each of them. She didn't want to get back into the same predicament that she worked so hard to get out of. Unfortunately, she was in a completely different predicament. She was dating two great men who both got along great with her daughter.

Matt was a guidance counselor at Mystic Falls High School and had moved here specifically for the job. His sister turned out to be Vicki, the new hostess at the Mystic Grill. They enjoyed picnics in the park with Emma and cooked dinner together on nights when they stayed in.

Klaus was a few years older than Caroline and turned out to be a multi-billionaire and headed the board of Mikaelson Industries, a parent company that had grown to include dozens of subsidiaries since its foundation fifty years earlier. When his father died ten years earlier, he left it all to his children who were all members of the board. Klaus had turned out to be ruthless in the business world and his brothers and sister had happily let him take head chair. He was the third oldest of six children: Finn, Elijah, Klaus, Kol, Rebekah, and Henrik. She had met them one day in Charlottesville after a boardroom meeting.

Three months later, Caroline was sitting in her best friend, Elena's, apartment. She needed some girl talk. Four months in and she was still dating both Matt and Klaus. In fact, she was supposed to have had dinner with both of them the night before.

"So neither of them were there when you arrived?" Elena asked as she handed Caroline a glass of lemonade and sat on the couch beside her. They were just talking now as Emma, Caroline's daughter, slept on a blanket on the floor.

"No!" Caroline exclaimed. "I was only ten minutes late and I had texted them both that Emma had a hard time letting me go and that I was on my way. I knew that it was going to be weird, but they had each asked me in the past to introduce them to each other. Maybe they both decided at the last minute that it was too weird."

"Why would they want to meet each other?"

"I'm not sure. I think so that I can just lay all my cards on the table at one time."

"Have you spoken to either of them since last night?"

"No, I have tried calling them both and neither answered or called me back. I've tried texting them, nothing. I'm starting to get really nervous."

"Why don't you go and visit them?"

"They both live here in Mystic Falls. Klaus works in Charlottesville and Matt works at the high school. I can't bother Matt right now; he's pretty busy this week."

"Can I ask you a question? Without you getting upset?"

"You wonder how I could continue dating them both after four months? How I can be sleeping with both of them?" Caroline provided the questions for Elena.

A voice rang out from behind them. "Ooh, sleeping with two men? How scandalous." Caroline and Elena turned around to find that Katherine and Nadia had joined them. Katherine and Nadia were Elena's biological sisters. Katherine and Elena were identical twins, Katherine being an hour older, and Nadia was born ten months after them. Luckily Katherine and Elena had two different personalities and styles otherwise one would never be able to tell them apart. Katherine and Elena had each been adopted. Elena was adopted by Dr. Gilbert and his wife. They would have adopted Katherine as well, but decided that logically his wife could have hidden a simple pregnancy, but not a pregnancy with twins. Katherine was adopted by a wealthy couple who lived in Richmond. Shortly after her adopted parents deaths she started searching for family and was directed to Dr. Gilbert. The Gilberts took Katherine in and she and Elena became very close. A few months later, Grayson and Miranda had passed away after driving off of Wickery Bridge.

Nadia had been yet another surprise for Katherine and Elena. Six months after Grayson and Miranda died, Miranda's sister, Jenna, moved into the house to care for the girls and Jeremy. Jenna had started dating their new history teacher, Alaric Saltzman, who moved into town with his step-daughter, Nadia Petrova. While searching for their birth mother, they discovered that Alaric had married their birth mother, Isobel. After Isobel's murder, Alaric kept custody of her daughter, Nadia. The biggest surprise though was finding out that the man Elena always thought was her Uncle John had turned out to be all three of their biological fathers.

"Please tell us more." Katherine and Nadia took seats on the loveseat across from them.

"I met them a day apart. I agreed to go out with each of them, never figuring that both relationships would last. They never do. Joke was on me, neither of them ran when they saw my devotion to Emma. I just can't bear to let either of them go. Matt is so down to earth and patient and safe. I can talk to him about anything and he is so easy going. Klaus takes my breath away. I never know what to expect with him. If I asked for the moon, I truly believe he find some way of making sure it was mine. He's sweet and exciting and makes me question myself. I love them both and can not imagine life without either of them." Caroline told them all truthfully.

"Wow, wrap all of that up into one man and you would have the perfect man." Nadia raised her eyebrows.

"They're both perfect." Caroline sighed and fell back against the couch. "And now I've lost them both." Caroline's phone gave a short ring, alerting her to a new text message. She pulled her phone out of the diaper bag and flipped it open to see a message from Klaus. _Can you come by the loft around six? We need to talk._

"There it is. That was Klaus. _We need to talk, _might as well be universal code for we're breaking up. He wants me to come by his loft at six." She looked up at the clock on the wall to see that its four. "I guess I should get home so that I can get ready and go over."

"Do you want me to keep Emma for the night? That way you can take your time with him and maybe go see Matt afterwards." Elena offered.

"Would you mind?"

"Of course not."

Caroline took her keys, wallet, and phone out of the diaper bag and thanked Elena before heading home to get ready.

Caroline took a deep breath as she stood outside the door to Klaus' loft before knocking on the door. A moment later the door opened to show her older, millionaire boyfriend. "Hello, Caroline." He leaned over and kissed her as he handed her glass of wine. "Please, come in." He stepped back and let her in.

Caroline took a sip of the wine he handed her and stepped into the loft. "I was surprised to get your call. I was worried that I wouldn't get to see you again." He reached out and pulled her to him, wrapping her in his arms as he kissed her head.

"Caroline, are you okay?" Caroline recognized Matt's voice from behind her. Caroline let go of Klaus and spun around.

"Matt? What are you doing here?" Caroline looked from Klaus to Matt, bewildered.

That was the first chapter. I'm already working on chapter two. Please review and I will get it uploaded as soon as possible.

If the story of Katherine, Elena, and Nadia interests anyone, I will be uploading another story that focuses on them as teenagers finding each other.


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